The present invention relates to a seat structure for a vehicle, and more particularly, to a movement mechanism of a rear seat which is disposed in front of a load compartment at a vehicle rear.
In recent years, various structures for a vehicle for effectively utilizing a limited space in the vehicle has been adopted. A structure in which a seat including a seat cushion and a seat back is configured so as to be partially foldable or moveable to provide a wide, flat and horizontal face for a load and the like is known.
For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 11-115587 discloses a structure in which a seat back is moved forward in front of a seat cushion by a link member and thereby a substantially flat and horizontal face is constituted by a rest-side face of the seat back and a sitting face of the seat cushion. Also, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2000-272394 discloses a structure in which the seat cushion is rotated forward around an axis at the front end thereof and the seat back is pulled down forward, thereby forming a substantially flat face comprised of a bottom face of the seat cushion and a back face of the seat back. Further, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 9-142189 discloses a structure in which the seat back is folded down on the sitting face of the seat cushion and then the seat cushion and the seat back are rotated forward together around an axis at the front of the seat cushion, thereby providing a flat face constituted by the bottom face of the seat cushion and a vehicle floor face on which the seat cushion is placed in a normal use state (namely, in a state of passenger sitting). Furthermore, Japanese Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2000-108744 discloses a structure in which the seat back is folded down on the sitting face of the seat cushion and then the seat cushion and seat back are moved forward in parallel by a link member, thereby providing a flat face constituted by the back face of the seat back and the vehicle floor face on which the seat cushion is placed in the normal use state.
Herein, the following structures of holding or moving the seat would be preferable, namely, (a) the seat cushion should be fixed without being moved in order to secure a sufficient rigidity of the seat cushion for passengers sitting on or loads placed on the seat; (b) it should be easy to operate the seat to be folded or shifted; and (c) a dead space in the vehicle should be utilized effectively. Meanwhile, it may be useful to apply such structures of folding or moving the seat, in order to provide a horizontal face on which the loads and the like are placed, to a rear seat which is disposed in front of a vehicle load compartment for the purpose of obtaining a large load space at a vehicle rear. Herein, it would be preferable to locate a horizontal face of the seat and the floor face of the load compartment in lower positions in order to allow easy loading or unloading through a vehicle tail gate and provide a larger load compartment in a vehicle-height direction as well. Also, it would be preferable to constitute a substantially flat large face by the horizontal face of the seat and the floor face of the load compartment for the purpose of providing a stable loading space for relatively long loads and the like. However, the above-described prior art could not satisfy all these needs.